I. Field
The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to providing fairness in sharing resources among wireless modes in a wireless communication environment.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as, e.g., voice content, data content, and so on. Typical wireless communication systems can be multiple-access systems capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing available system resources (e.g., bandwidth, transmit power). Examples of such multiple-access systems can include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, and the like.
Generally, wireless multiple-access communication systems can concurrently support communication for multiple user terminals. Mobile devices respectively can communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on forward and reverse links. The forward link (or downlink) refers to a communication link from base stations to user terminals, and the reverse link (or uplink) refers to a communication link from user terminals to base stations. Further, communications between user terminals and base stations can be established via single-input single-output (SISO) systems, multiple-input single-output (MISO) systems, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and so forth.
In addition to the foregoing, ad-hoc wireless communication networks enable communication devices to transmit, or receive information while on the move and without the need for traditional base stations. These communication networks can be communicatively coupled to other public or private networks, for example via wired or wireless access points, in order to facilitate transfer of information to and from user terminals. Such ad-hoc communication networks typically include a plurality of access terminals (e.g., mobile communication devices, mobile phones, wireless user terminals), communicating in a peer-to-peer fashion. The communication networks may also include beacon points that emit strong signals to facilitate peer-to-peer communication amongst access terminals; for example, emitted beacons can contain timing information to aid in timing synchronization of such terminals.
Wireless communications generally involves multiple wireless transceivers, within a particular geographic area, transmitting signals on particular radio frequencies. Interference between signals of multiple transceivers can result when nearby transceivers transmit on common frequencies, at common times, or employing common codes or symbols (e.g., utilizing common wireless resources). To mitigate overlapping transmissions and resulting signal interference, wireless communications are typically structured in time, frequency, or on various code or symbol resources, to enable signals to be distinguished from other signals. For instance, transmitting at different times enables distinction, as well as transmitting on orthogonal frequencies. Furthermore, employing orthogonal codes or symbols can also yield mitigated interference, even for signals transmitted at a common point in time. Thus, wireless resources are segmented to enable multiple nodes to operate in a given wireless environment.
Although multiple access systems employ various techniques to reduce interference and provide high quality communications (e.g., such as resource segmentation), as a number of transmitters in a wireless environment increases, the interference problem tends to reoccur. Accordingly, network communication controllers often require some nodes to yield channel resources (e.g., transmission time, transmission frequency) to other nodes where interference occurs. Such a determination can be based on a traffic priority, signaling priority, etc., of the respective nodes, or the like. Although such an arrangement can keep interference to a minimum, it can also result in delay or interruption for yielding nodes. Accordingly, improvement in managing large numbers of wireless transceivers in an environment with finite resources is a continuing goal in wireless operations design.